


pour some sugar on me

by jessalae



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Beast (The Magicians), Domestic Eliot Waugh, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Quentin Coldwater's Canonical Oral Fixation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28485075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessalae/pseuds/jessalae
Summary: “Seriously, what’s with all this, El?” Margo asks, daintily eating a seven-layer bar with a fork. “Why the fuck have you gone all domestic goddess on me? Did you decide you’re gonna be a magical dentist when you graduate and you want to guarantee yourself a steady stream of patients?”“Does there have to be an ulterior motive?” Eliot sets the pan of bars on the table with a little stack of plates and pile of forks. “Can’t I just enjoy taking care of my friends?”
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 14
Kudos: 121
Collections: Peaches and Plums Stockings 2020





	pour some sugar on me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grimweather](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimweather/gifts).



> Thank you to Sylph for betaing! Title is from the song of the same name by Def Leppard.

It’s not really in character, Eliot knows, for a hedonist to have a domestic side. He’s spent so much time cultivating this luxurious, devil-may-care aesthetic. He really shouldn’t be ruining it, now, by lowering himself to the level of actually _cooking_. The Eliot Waughs of the world don’t do their own cooking. They have _people_ for that.

But there are times, he reasons, when one must accept a small defeat in order to obtain a larger victory. 

And the ostentatious, pleasure-seeking side of him certainly considers _this_ a victory: pretty little Quentin Coldwater, sitting on the edge of the dining table (a voice in Eliot’s head that sounds a lot like his grandmother chides _people eat there, and they don’t want to eat your behind_ , but Eliot suppresses that for many reasons, not the least of which being that he _does_ want to eat Quentin’s behind), feet swinging just above the floor, eating his fourth oatmeal cookie since he came downstairs a half hour ago and found Eliot indulging his domestic demons.

“You _promise_ you didn’t put something in these?” he asks.

“What would I have put in them?” Eliot returns. The oven timer goes off, forcing Eliot to tear his eyes away from the delectable man in front of him to get out the last tray of cookies, but at least it lets him bend _all_ the way over to do so. These pants make his ass look great. Maybe, just maybe, Quentin can appreciate that.

“I dunno. Drugs? Magic? Magical drugs,” Quentin suggests.

“To what end, exactly?” Eliot asks, transferring cookies onto a cooling rack.

“Making them addictively delicious?”

“I don’t need drugs for that. Just lots of butter and brown sugar.”

Quentin shrugs. “If you say so. They’re just weirdly good. I’m not even normally an oatmeal raisin kinda guy.”

Eliot turns off the oven, sets the mixing bowl and spoons into the sink to deal with later, and leans against the kitchen counter. How to respond to that blatant opening… “Everyone enjoys branching out of their comfort zone sometimes,” he says eventually, having decided that _I can make you like things you’ve never dreamed of_ would be over the top.

Quentin laughs and belatedly covers his mouth. It’s gross, Eliot doesn’t want to see anyone’s chewed-up food, but the little spark of worry in his eyes as he realizes he’s been rude is endearing. “Not me,” he says firmly. “I am— I can barely handle being _in_ my comfort zone half the time.”

“Then it’s not exactly a comfort zone, is it?” Eliot asks, frowning at him.

“It is sometimes.” Quentin grimaces. “I’m just— very fucked up.”

“I wouldn’t know _anything_ about that,” Eliot drawls. Quentin reaches for cookie number five, and Eliot forces himself not to smile giddily. “Save some for the rest of the class, Mr. Coldwater.”

“But they’re so _good_ ,” Quentin protests again, taking a bite with his eyebrows raised. “I want them _all_.”

“Tell you what,” Eliot says. “You can have that plate all to yourself if you take care of the dishes.”

“Deal,” Quentin says cheerfully, much faster than Eliot expected him to. He hops off the table and brings the plate into the kitchen, presumably so nobody else can snag any while he’s busy cleaning.

“You’ll want an apron,” Eliot says, pulling one off the hook next to the fridge. “The water pressure charm on the sink has been redone one too many times. It occasionally decides to turn clean up time into wet t-shirt contest time.”

“It decides that? Or you decide to make it do that?” Quentin asks, rolling up the sleeves of his hoodie and accepting the apron out of Eliot’s hands.

“I would never,” Eliot says. “Dish soap is terrible for clothes.”

“Hm,” Quentin says skeptically. “Still. I might be safer with you out of the kitchen while I do this.”

“You just want to eat the rest of the cookies that aren’t on your plate,” Eliot accuses, but he wanders towards the door.

“I would never,” Quentin teases. 

Eliot gives him a look and heads to the bar cart to work on finding the correct cocktail pairing for this cookie recipe. So he doesn’t get to see Quentin at the sink, hands wet, wearing an apron, not physically barefoot-in-the-kitchen for him but kind of _spiritually_ barefoot-in-the-kitchen for him. That’s fine. That visual would be just a bit too domestic, and Eliot’s not domestic. Eliot’s a hedonist.

* * *

Eliot doesn’t intend it to be A Thing. The second time it happens, it’s late enough in the evening that most of the Cottage is asleep, or at least in their rooms, so it’s simply the perfect time to indulge his embarrassingly Pinterest-y impulses when it’s unlikely anyone will see him. His chocolate is melting nicely over its pan of simmering water, the oven is preheating and filling the room with comfortable warmth, he’s got dry ingredients all whisked and ready when he hears the door open, footsteps, the sound of someone breathing heavily.

“What smells so good?” a voice says from the hallway, and then Quentin’s walking into the kitchen, wearing gym shorts and a sweat-soaked t-shirt, face flushed.

“Were you _running_?” Eliot asks incredulously.

“Are you _baking_?” Quentin snips back in the same tone. Eliot inclines his head a little — _a hit, a very palpable hit_ — and Quentin’s mouth twitches into a smile. “Yeah. Trying to get back into it. Lot nicer to run around here at night than it was in the city.” He stretches down to touch his toes, groaning. Eliot turns back to his now-melted chocolate, deliberately focusing on the careful process of taking it off the heat, adding in cubes of butter, stirring until it’s all liquid and glossy and smooth. “No stoplights, fewer creepy people. And the weather is like, _always_ perfect.”

“That’s deliberate,” Eliot says. “The wards that keep this place hidden also keep the weather nice. It rains maybe once a month, I think just for the aesthetics. And it’ll snow exactly one time when winter break is approaching, just enough to make the campus all white and pretty for a morning.”

“Huh,” Quentin says. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Really?” Eliot asks, incredulous again — but it does seem that Quentin excels at not noticing things, so perhaps that makes sense.

“Well I don’t know, I’ve been here like, a couple months? It could just be an unusually nice fall this year.” Quentin leans gingerly against the doorframe. His shirt is dark with sweat in a broad patch down the middle of his chest, and presumably the same down his back. His face has returned to its normal color, now, although wisps of hair are still stuck to his cheeks. 

“It’s mid-October and I was sunbathing on the patio with no shirt on yesterday.”

“I know,” Quentin says. So he does notice _some_ things. “But maybe that’s just a thing you do.” He scratches at the back of his neck, watches Eliot stir the dry ingredients into his brownie batter. “Seems like a thing you’d do.”

“And what you mean by that is…”

“You’re a show-off,” Quentin says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Which. Okay, it is probably the most obvious thing in the world. “You strut around here—”

“ _Strut_?”

“—being all fancy and like, flourish-y. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that you’d like. Deliberately choose to go sun’s-out guns-out no matter what the calendar says.”

“I’d go _what_ now?” Eliot asks, turning towards Quentin with one hand on his hip, trying not to grin like a maniac. He _likes_ this sassy Quentin. Is this just late-night Quentin? Is it post-workout Quentin? Eliot could give him a late-night workout of a different kind, if that’s what it takes to get him talking back like this. It’d be no trouble at all.

“Whatever,” Quentin says, waving a hand, retreating back into his less sassy shell. “Are you done stirring?”

Eliot looks back at his batter. “Yes?”

“Can I lick the spoon?”

Eliot stares at him: ratty gym shorts over strong legs, hair falling half out of a dumb little ponytail, big brown eyes in an exaggerated expression of pleading. “Sure,” he says, holding it out. Quentin grins as he leans forward to snag it, and then he’s leaning against the doorframe running his tongue up the flat of it, making a pleased noise, and Eliot is just _watching_ him, trying to keep his jaw from falling all the way to the damn floor.

This, getting to see this — this is a victory for hedonism. This is a _triumph_. 

Eliot gets the batter in a pan and the pan in the oven and when he turns around again Quentin’s just finishing up with the spoon. He puts the whole thing in his mouth, stretching those pretty pink (now slightly chocolate-y) lips over it and sliding it out of his mouth, tongue drawing up the bowl of it to get any last bits. “That’s super good,” he tells Eliot. His tongue flicks out of his mouth after a stray dollop of chocolate. “I guess it’d be over the top for me to ask to lick the bowl?”

 _Not if you promise to lick something else of my choosing afterwards,_ Eliot’s mind purrs. “Go wild,” he says, handing it to Quentin. “Less work to wash it that way.”

Quentin surveys the bowl like a general planning his attack. “Will there be any actual brownies left in the morning? I think I should go to bed, but I wanna try one when they’re done.”

“I think the clamoring masses may have eaten them all by the time you get up,” Eliot sighs forlornly. Quentin frowns at him. There’s a smudge of brownie batter on his chin. “Nobody else is coming down here at this hour,” Eliot says. “There’ll be plenty left if you feel like brownies for breakfast.”

“Maybe you could like, save one for me,” Quentin says. “Specifically, with like, a note? Just in case.”

“Jesus,” Eliot says, laughing. “All right. Daddy will write you a little note—”

“What—” 

“—to go in your lunch box so the other kiddies know you’re his bestest boy.”

“I just want a brownie,” Quentin grumbles, “you didn’t have to make it weird.”

“Sometimes it’s weird. That’s the price you pay for Eliot Waugh baked goods.”

Quentin sighs. “I’ll take it, I guess.”

* * *

So after two times — it’s A Thing. Eliot hadn’t intended it to be, but you know what, now it is. Which is why over the next few weeks, the Cottage is treated to nearly every recipe in Eliot’s repertoire, plus some new ones he has to research.

Chocolate chip toffee cookies: Quentin snarfs down three still warm from the oven and scurries up to his room with a stack of half a dozen more, but not before he steals a spare handful of chocolate chips and tosses them into the air one by one to catch them in his mouth, occasionally using a little wisp of magic to grab one that’s gotten off track.

Cinnamon pecan rolls: sticky with filling and slathered with icing, Quentin grabs one before they’re properly cooled, unravels it until it’s room temperature enough to eat, then licks all his fingers _thoroughly_ to remove the coating of sugar and spice he’s accumulated.

Cake pops: when Eliot’s hair falls in his face while his hands are coated in frosting, Quentin walks right up to him to brush it off his forehead and back into place. Then he eats the cake pops almost faster than Eliot can make them, his perfect mouth wrapping around each one to finish it off in one bite.

Apple turnovers: Eliot’s swearing under his breath at this _crust_ that won’t _stay chilled for two seconds_ and Quentin leaves his homework and hovers next to him, sliding cookie sheets into and out of the freezer whenever Eliot directs him to. He also keeps stealing spoonfuls of sugar- and bourbon-soaked apple filling whenever he thinks Eliot’s not looking. (Eliot is always looking.)

Pumpkin cheesecake: Quentin complains that it smells too good and Eliot’s driving him crazy while the graham cracker crust is baking, then when the first pumpkin layer is baking, then when the plain layer is baking. He eats one slice before it’s properly cooled because Eliot is weak-willed and gives in to his puppy dog eyes, and another later on when everyone else gets one, and tells Eliot it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted.

White chocolate peppermint cookies: Eliot doesn’t even really like white chocolate, but it gives him an excuse to buy candy canes, and as soon as Quentin spots them he’s got one in his mouth and is sitting in the doorway of the kitchen with a book propped on his knees, sucking it to a sharp point, making the occasional obscene slurping noise that Eliot should dislike and very much does not.

“Seriously, what’s with all this, El?” Margo asks, daintily eating a seven-layer bar with a fork. “Why the fuck have you gone all domestic goddess on me? Did you decide you’re gonna be a magical dentist when you graduate and you want to guarantee yourself a steady stream of patients?”

“Does there have to be an ulterior motive?” Eliot sets the pan of bars on the table with a little stack of plates and pile of forks. “Can’t I just enjoy taking care of my friends?”

The door opens before Margo has a chance to say anything and Quentin and Alice come in, fresh from Astronomy lab and looking exhausted. “Oh _hell_ yeah,” Quentin says, setting down his messenger bag by the stairs. He helps himself to a bar and takes a bite. He belatedly realizes that dishes and cutlery are a thing and grabs a plate, but it’s too late, he’s got melted chocolate and sticky condensed milk all over his hand. “That is,” he says, “ _exactly_ what I needed right now. Mm.” He slides two fingers into his mouth together to lick graham cracker crumbs off them, curls his tongue around the pad of his thumb to catch a stray drop of chocolate. “Can I take another?”

“One more,” Eliot says sternly. “You’re going to put yourself in a sugar coma.”

Quentin rolls his eyes. “Thanks, _mom_.” He licks up the side of his hand to finish cleaning up, then thankfully uses his other hand to put another bar on his plate. “Seriously, El, these are fucking delicious.”

“I try,” Eliot says blandly, as Quentin heads upstairs, and Alice darts over to furtively take a bar and a plate and a fork and thank him before she, too, leaves.

Once Alice is gone, Margo clears her throat sharply, and Eliot turns to look at her thoroughly unimpressed face. “Does there _have_ to be an ulterior motive? No,” she says. “Is there, in this case? There certainly fucking is.”

“If you say so, Bambi,” Eliot says.

* * *

As enjoyable as this whole thing is — and it’s _very_ enjoyable, the diminishing supply of lube in Eliot’s bedside drawer is a testament to that — Eliot’s not quite sure where it’s going. He can’t keep this pace up forever; he likes baking, but it’s not really his greatest passion, and he’s already started feeling nostalgic for his normal hobbies of mixology and casual sex. It’s been most of a semester that they’ve been friends, and he still hasn’t figured out what Quentin’s entire deal is, sexuality-wise. He’s not at all confident that _Quentin_ has figured out what his entire deal is, sexuality-wise. And Quentin seems perfectly happy to eat as many desserts as Eliot will give him, to stand there oblivious and gorgeous and banter a little and _lick sugar off his fingers_ like that’s a thing normal adults do, without giving Eliot a single hint about what the fuck is going on in his head.

Soon it’ll be winter break, and Eliot will split his time between the blissfully empty Cottage and Margo’s father’s third-best vacation house in Fiji. Quentin will, no doubt, go back to his dad’s comfortable suburban house in Jersey. And when he returns, perhaps Eliot will have moved on. Maybe he’ll find someone in Fiji to hook up with who can fuck all thoughts of Quentin Coldwater right out of his addled head. That can be his goal: leave domesticity and the unbearable crushes it brings behind. Dive fully back into hedonism, and the pleasures life can provide that aren’t full of butter and simple carbohydrates.

This year’s single snowy morning at Brakebills arrives on a Sunday. Eliot’s still in bed, obviously, it’s barely ten in the morning, when a shrieking noise emanates from two floors below him. He pulls on some lounge pants and hustles down, right behind Margo and Alice and Kady and her psychic boyfriend, the cranky handsome one, who are also investigating what the fuck is happening.

What’s happening is there’s a pan on the stove, and it’s on fire, and Quentin has the sink on and is attempting to splash water onto it like he’s _not even a Magician_ , like putting out fires you accidentally set wasn’t a lesson from orientation week. 

Margo’s in the room first, and she snarls and does the correct tuts and the fire is gone, leaving just a few billows of smoke and a panicked Quentin. Then she turns on her heel and pushes past the rest of the crowd, storming back upstairs. The gathered Physical Kids and guests thereof drift away, muttering various things from “at least it wasn’t a _real_ fire” to “for fuck’s sake, Coldwater.” Kady’s boyfriend at least bothers to push the button on the smoke detector so it resets and stops its wailing.

Eliot stays until everyone else is gone, and Quentin looks at him sadly, half-melted plastic spatula in hand, the front of his shirt soaked with water from the sink.

“Guess I should leave the cooking to you, huh?” he asks Eliot sheepishly.

“Probably for the best,” Eliot says, surveying the carnage. In addition to the smoldering mess on the stove, there are about four mixing bowls out, every measuring spoon they have, a pile of eggshells in the sink, and flour dusted across the floor. “What were you making?”

“Pancakes,” Quentin says. “I thought—” He sighs. “I just, you’re always surprising me with nice things, I thought it’d be. I don’t know, cute or whatever, to bring you breakfast in bed.”

Eliot’s heart melts, much like the spatula Quentin is now tossing forlornly into the trash. “That would have been very cute,” he says. Then it registers: “Why were you trying to be cute, exactly?”

Quentin’s eyes widen. “Um. Did I say cute? I meant like, friendly?”

“No, you didn’t,” Eliot says slowly. He takes a step towards Quentin, who backs up, and Eliot pauses. “You don’t have to tell me,” he says after a long moment of hesitation. “It’s fine. Let’s just get this mess dealt with, then we can portal to a diner somewhere and get pancakes that aren’t discs of charcoal.”

“Yeah,” Quentin says, and they set about cleaning up, washing dishes and wiping up spilled ingredients and disposing of the remains of Quentin’s sad, too-thick pancake batter. They work in silence, but it isn’t awkward: weeks of Quentin hanging around while Eliot cooks, reading or doing homework or just being companionably _there_ , have prepared them for this eventuality.

Finally the kitchen is reasonably back to normal. Eliot wrings out the sponge and surveys their handiwork, trying to feel satisfaction at a job well done instead of curiosity about what, exactly, Quentin’s little pancake misadventure had been trying to accomplish. “I’ll go get dressed and meet you down here in fifteen minutes?”

Quentin is still drying the last bowl, rubbing at it with a dishcloth and looking a little lost. “Yeah.” Eliot’s barely taken a step when he says, “Actually, no. Um— I’ll come up too. To your room.”

Eliot remains calm. “All right.”

It’s a silent climb up to the attic. Quentin’s mouth is shut tight, jaw clenched, and Eliot — has absolutely no idea what to say. He still isn’t sure what’s happening. He knows what he _hopes_ is happening, but surely — no. Surely not. 

As soon they’re past the beaded curtain and in Eliot’s room, Quentin gestures at Eliot’s bed and says, “Could you— can you sit in bed, for a minute? I have. Fuck,” he mutters to himself. “Fuck.”

“Q, are you okay?”

“I had this whole plan,” Quentin says. “And maybe if I just, if I do— some of it the way I planned it, um. I might be able to get through this.” He gestures to the bed again. “Please?”

Eliot, thoroughly confused and more than a little concerned about his friend’s mental wellbeing, sits in his bed.

“Okay,” Quentin says, seeming to relax a little. “Okay. Um, you have to imagine that I— have pancakes for you. And coffee.”

“Okay,” Eliot says. A grin spreads across his face just imagining it. It _is_ cute. Almost sickeningly so.

Quentin steps towards the bed, his hands twitching like he’s maybe going to _mime_ the breakfast tray he doesn’t have before he shoves them into the pockets of his sweats. “Morning,” he says.

“Good morning,” Eliot replies obediently.

“So I was thinking,” Quentin says, taking another step towards the bed. “First I just wanted to say— thank you, for everything this semester, for— helping me figure things out. And for all the cookies and stuff. And just, for putting up with me, basically.”

“It was my pleasure,” Eliot says truthfully, then stops when he sees the flash of panic across Quentin’s face and realizes he’s interrupted his script. “Sorry, you were saying?”

“Uh. Yeah, so, um. Before we go away for break. I was just, uh.” Quentin takes a deep breath and spits it all out in a rush: “I really like being friends with you but I was wondering if you maybe would want to be— more than friends?”

Eliot’s grin is now so wide it’s making his face hurt. He might look kind of crazed, actually. “This is,” he says slowly, “absolutely the cutest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Quentin stares at him. “Um. Good?” 

“I want to say yes,” Eliot says, realizing as it comes out of his mouth that he actually _does_. “But I feel I should warn you, this isn’t… my usual MO,” he finishes finally. “I’m generally more of a love-em-and-leave-em guy. I don’t think that’s what you’re looking for.”

“Yeah, um, not— that wasn’t what I, uh,” Quentin says, looking crestfallen.

“Right.” No hedonism, then. Well, some hedonism. Hedonism within the constraints of— whatever Quentin is offering. A relationship, perhaps. A relationship _with Quentin_. “So I’ll be a bit out of my comfort zone,” Eliot continues. Why is his heart pounding so hard? “I imagine there will be a learning curve.” He takes a deep breath and makes himself look right at Quentin, really take in the whole package: nervous eyes, fidgety hands, tension and anxiety visible in his strained shoulders and wrinkled forehead. “But if you’re willing to work with me on that, then— yes. I’d very much like to be more than friends.”

Quentin swallows hard. “I mean I don’t really like, know a whole lot about, successful dating? There’s gonna be a learning curve for me too,” he says. “So— I can work with that.” His mouth curves sideways into a smile, his eyes bright.

“Excellent,” Eliot says. “Neither of us knows what we’re doing, we’ll manage somehow. Now get over here.”

Quentin looks _surprised_ , for some unfathomable reason, but walks forward to hover uncertainly next to Eliot’s bed. “Okay,” he says. “Why?”

“So I can do this,” Eliot says, and tugs on his wrist until Quentin leans down and he can kiss him.

Quentin makes the sweetest little noise and crowds further into Eliot’s space, one knee on the bed. His fingers tentatively brush the shell of Eliot’s ear, then settle comfortably on the nape of Eliot’s neck. He’s as warm and giving with his kisses as he’s been with his friendship, following Eliot’s lead beautifully. And then he opens his mouth a little, that tongue Eliot’s been dreaming about for months pushing insistently at Eliot’s lips, getting bolder as Eliot makes a pleased sound and opens for him.

“All right, learning curve question number one,” Eliot says, pulling back a breathless moment later before his instincts can fully take over. “Should I buy you dinner first?”

“First?” Quentin asks. As an answer, Eliot wraps an arm around his waist and pulls him close, their chests pressing together. “Oh,” he says, and his smile widens into a full-on grin. “Um. Dinner’s like— a really long time away, it feels like. And you’ve made me a lot of food already. So…” He grabs the headboard and lifts himself up all the way onto the bed, straddling Eliot’s lap. “Maybe we call it good?”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Eliot says, and reels him in to kiss him again.


End file.
